High blood pressure not being treated adequately

By Robert Cervin, June 7th, 2013 | Health | 0 Comments

Doctors seem reluctant to prescribe medication for high blood pressure, even though patients stand to benefit from it, according to a study.
Even though it is well-established that treating high blood pressure reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke, many patients do not have their blood pressure under control. To survey the extent of the problem, researchers in New York studied 270 patient visits. Ninety three per cent of the visits involved a systolic blood pressure (upper figure) of 140 mm Hg or more, and in 35 per cent of cases the blood pressure was more than 150 mm Hg. But medication was only prescribed or changed in 38 per cent of the visits, even though the elevated blood pressure had been there for at least six months.

The main reason why doctors are not prescribing for high blood pressure is that they don’t see systolic blood pressure as a problem if the lower - diastolic - figure remains below 90 mm Hg. This is despite a body of research showing the risks of so called ‘isolated’ systolic hypertension. Unless doctors are more willing to put the research into practice, millions of patients will go untreated and will continue to run a higher than necessary risk of heart disease, stroke and other complications.